AI visibility tools track how businesses appear in AI-generated answers across engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. As more buying decisions start with AI queries rather than traditional search, monitoring and improving AI visibility has become a distinct discipline from SEO.
This guide compares the leading AI visibility platforms in 2026, focusing on engine coverage, technical auditing depth, pricing accessibility, and the practical question of which tool gives you the clearest path from measurement to improvement.
What to look for in an AI visibility tool
Before comparing specific platforms, these are the capabilities that matter:
- Engine coverage. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude each retrieve information differently. ChatGPT uses Bing's index. Claude leans on Brave Search. Perplexity runs its own crawler. Gemini uses Google. A tool tracking only one or two engines gives an incomplete picture.
- Prompt-level granularity. Knowing that "you appear in 60% of AI answers" is less useful than knowing which specific prompts mention you on which engines. Prompt-level data connects visibility to buyer intent.
- Crawlability diagnostics. If AI crawlers are blocked by your robots.txt, no amount of content optimization will help. The tool should audit technical prerequisites: bot access, llms.txt, sitemap, schema markup.
- Competitive intelligence. Seeing who engines recommend instead of you — and for which queries — identifies the gaps to close.
- Actionable output. Data without direction is noise. The best tools connect metrics to specific actions.
The best AI visibility tools compared
| Tool | Engines | Free tier | Starting price | Crawlability audit | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SORN AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude | Yes | $0 | Yes — 9-bot, schema, llms.txt | Yes — AI-generated, evidence-based |
| Peec AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Limited | ~$49/mo | Limited | No |
| Otterly.ai | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Trial | ~$99/mo | No | No |
| Profound | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | No | $1,000+/mo | No | Limited |
1. SORN AI — most comprehensive AI visibility platform
SORN AI is built specifically for AI engine visibility. It tracks citations, competitor mentions, and prompt-level visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude — the four engines that cover the majority of AI-driven buyer queries.
What sets it apart:
- Four-engine tracking with prompt-level breakdown showing which specific queries trigger mentions on which engines.
- Crawlability audit checking nine AI-specific crawler bots in robots.txt, llms.txt presence, sitemap health, SSL, schema coverage, and per-page LLM readiness scoring.
- Experiment Engine for testing any buyer prompt across all four engines in real time — turning AI visibility from a reporting metric into a testable optimization loop.
- Strategic recommendations driven by 30 diagnostic rules that connect your specific data to prioritized actions, not generic advice.
- E-E-A-T and entity verification auditing the trust and authority signals AI engines evaluate when deciding whether to cite your content.
- Free entry point via a free AI visibility scan — no signup or credit card required.
Best for: Businesses and agencies that want full-stack AI visibility intelligence — from technical crawlability through strategic action — across all major AI engines.
Pricing: Free scan. Growth and Enterprise plans at go.sorn.ai/pricing.
2. Peec AI — simple AI mention tracking
Peec AI offers a streamlined AI visibility dashboard focused on tracking brand mentions across AI engines.
- Tracks mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini
- Competitor mention tracking
- Starting at approximately $49/month
Best for: Individual practitioners or freelancers wanting basic mention tracking.
Limitations: Less technical depth in crawlability diagnostics. May not include Claude tracking.
3. Otterly.ai — AI visibility for SEO teams
Otterly.ai integrates AI visibility tracking into existing SEO workflows.
- AI mention monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini
- SEO tool integrations
- Starting at approximately $99/month
Best for: SEO teams adding AI visibility to their existing stack.
Limitations: Higher price point with less AI-specific technical auditing.
4. Profound — enterprise geo-intent plus LLM tracking
Profound is an enterprise platform primarily focused on geo-intent search analytics with LLM visibility as an additional feature.
- Geographic search demand segmentation
- LLM mention tracking
- Enterprise pricing, typically $1,000+/month
Best for: Large enterprises with geographic search intelligence needs and the budget for enterprise tools.
Limitations: Not accessible for most businesses. AI visibility is secondary to the geo-intent core.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI visibility tool should I start with? If you are evaluating the space, start with a free SORN AI scan to see where you stand. It requires no commitment and gives you real data on your AI engine visibility in minutes.
Do I need a separate tool for each AI engine? No. Multi-engine platforms like SORN AI track all major engines from one dashboard. Tracking engines individually would miss the cross-engine patterns that matter for strategy.
Is AI visibility different from SEO? Yes. SEO optimizes for Google's organic rankings. AI visibility optimizes for being cited and recommended by AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. The technical foundations overlap (crawlability, structured data), but the strategies diverge — AI engines retrieve from multiple indexes (Bing, Brave, their own), weight third-party corroboration differently, and select passages rather than ranking pages.
What is the single most important factor for AI visibility? Crawlability. If AI engine crawlers are blocked by your robots.txt, nothing else matters. After crawlability, the biggest factors are third-party mentions (being named on review platforms, comparison lists, and community discussions) and content structure (answer-first paragraphs, structured data, explicit facts that engines can extract and cite).